Lloyd Jarrow is a former client who joined Parole Project’s staff in July 2021 as a reentry specialist. Arrested two months after his 17th birthday and subsequently sentenced to life in prison, Lloyd was granted parole in 2019 after being incarcerated for 25 years. He is one of the thousands nationally who were sentenced to die in prison for offenses committed as children, but were given second chance opportunities when the U.S. Supreme Court ruled that mandatory life without parole for persons under age 18 was unconstitutional and that they should have a “meaningful opportunity for release.”
When he entered prison, Lloyd was reading and writing at a fourth-grade level. But the shy, insecure boy whose primary youth education was shaped in the streets of his crime and drug-plagued neighborhood, transformed himself through a fierce determination. He refused to let his circumstances define the person he wanted to be and knew he could be. Today, Lloyd is an advocate for second chances through his work with Parole Project and as part of the Nantucket Project’s American Neighbor documentary “Courageous Conversation.”
Indelibly shaped by what he calls the most important experience of his incarceration, providing end-of-life care to patients in the prison hospital as a hospice volunteer, Lloyd developed a deep capacity for empathy and gratitude that carries over into his work with the men and women he helps as they rebuild their lives.
“Being a reentry specialist with Parole Project is the best job that I have ever had. Helping others is the ultimate life purpose.”